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Chansons

Straight from the factory floor comes the debut album from The VX-323, speech synthesis robot. Chansons’ nine tracks of sophisticated electronica feature synthetic vocals for all verses and choruses. It is a sound both familiar and unlike anything...

ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

The VX-323’s story is familiar - a working class robot with a creative drive overcomes long odds to express himself through his music. While working various odd jobs (assembling Kias, drilling 4mm holes, welding espresso machines, sorting offal) at factories around the world, he went home after his shifts and composed nine tight songs that comprise the album Chansons.

He created a debut record that is funk music for robots, slick electronica to humans. Bands such as Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, and Heaven 17 play a style of this robot funk, but it takes a real machine to perform it with soul.

From the factory floor to the millionth floor of a high-rise, The VX-323 sings not only about robot issues (“Factory Blues,” “When You’re Gone”) but also about humans and technology (“Billion Dollar Condo,” “Commuter Flight”). Using advanced algorithms, he was even able to calculate songs about human emotions, like “Night Time” and “Hey Baby.”

He named his album Chansons (French for “songs”) to reflect his style of music - lyric driven popular music. Historically, this style began as epic poems and evolved into modern French pop music such as Jacques Brel.

Excited by the potential of early demos, many producers helped him out, hooking him up with gear and studio time. Because he traveled for work, he visited many studios around the world, such as “a monastery with mystical acoustics” and “a sound booth in the sky,” as he remarks in Chansons’ liner notes.

A VX-323 unit is a speech synthesis android, designed to generate human speech. Through breakthroughs in DSP technology and advanced software techniques, a VX-323 unit can speak in various voices (native robot, Englishmen, Italian women) and even in several human and machine languages. This ability allowed The VX-323 to select voices that best fit each song.

The VX-323 hopes his success allows him to upgrade several of his components and to have access to cheap DC power and industrial lubricants that only famous robots get. He also hopes that both people and machines hear his music and tell him how great it is!

This is one CD review where I will not have to worry about hurting the singer’s feelings. No, it’s not that The VX-323 is heartless – well, strike that. The VX-323 is, in fact, heartless: he / she – it, is a robot. That’s right. The VX-323 is a “voice synthesis android,” programmed to provide vocals for the 9 tracks of electronica / Euro-pop that comprises the fascinating album, “Chansons.” Its back story is reason enough to check out The VX-323, but beyond that is the fact that the music, encompassing classic electronica grooves & effects inspired by the likes of Kraftwerk & Depeche Mode, andcountless dance-oriented works of the ‘80’s, so perfectly fits the theme of a robot and its role in a human-centric world. Employing different “voices” (an English-accented yuppie on “Billion Dollar Condo;” a Barry White-like narrator trading off with an Eddie Murphy-in-white-voice clone on “Hey Baby;” a disembodied PA announcer on “Commuter Flight,” etc.), The VX-323 “sings” songs about work, humans and technology from the non-human perspective. Funny, clever, thought-provoking, and musically satisfying as a collection of Euro-infused synth-pop songs, The VX-323’s debut CD, “Chansons,” must be heard to be believed.